Ten Minutes From Glory: The Fourth Quarter That Haunts the Bay

The specific agony of watching a 10-point lead evaporate in real time while holding a plate of nachos you can no longer taste.

49ersNFLSuper BowlKansas City ChiefsPatrick MahomesJimmy Garoppolo

Also in: American Zeitgeist

Super Bowl LIV was supposed to be the coronation. The 49ers — rebuilt from the post-dynasty rubble by Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch — led the Kansas City Chiefs 20-10 heading into the fourth quarter. The defense had been dominant. The run game was churning. Jimmy Garoppolo looked competent, which was all anyone needed him to be. And then Patrick Mahomes remembered he was Patrick Mahomes. Kansas City scored 21 unanswered points in the final period, dismantling a San Francisco defense that had looked invincible for fifty minutes. Garoppolo overthrew an open Emmanuel Sanders on what would have been a dagger. Mahomes threaded passes into coverage that didn't exist until he created it. The final score was 31-20, and it felt worse than that. For the 49ers faithful, it was a specific kind of torture: close enough to taste the sixth ring, far enough away to know it would haunt them. Shanahan, who had already been on the wrong end of a 28-3 collapse in Atlanta, now owned two of the most painful fourth-quarter collapses in Super Bowl history. The football gods have a type.